398 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE 



when what had been so called was shown to be a vibration 

 of particles — a mode or kind of motion — a " state," and 

 not a mysterious fluid existing as a thing in itself. 



Just as " caloric " no longer serves and is no longer 

 possible as the supposed " explanation " of the behaviour 

 of bodies in the hot or the cold state, so we no longer 

 require the supposition of " spirits " of one kind or another 

 as " explanations " of the living state of those products of 

 our mother earth which are called plants, animals and 

 men. In neither case do such " spirits " really " explain " 

 the state in question ; they are only names for the activity 

 which it was imagined that they served to explain. These 

 states or affections of matter remain as wonderful and 

 important to us as they were before. But by giving up the 

 prehistoric notions about them which have been handed 

 on until the present day we can think of them in a more 

 satisfactory way — a way which avoids the multiplication 

 of unnecessary imaginary agencies and the conception of 

 an intermittent and hesitating Creative Power, and substi- 

 tutes for it the operation of continuous orderly and pre- 

 ordained forces. 



It is true that we can neither ascertain nor imagine 

 either the beginning or the end of the orderly process 

 which we discover in operation to-day. We can trace it 

 back by well-established inference into a remote past, but 

 a beginning of it is not within the possibilities of human 

 thought. We can, with reasonable probability of being 

 correct, foretell the changes and developments which time 

 will bring in many combinations and dispositions which 

 are the manifestations of that process at this moment of 

 time, but we can not even think of a cessation of that 

 process. 



Should we ask, " Why does this process exist ? " there 

 is no answer. Nature does not reply ; an awful silence 

 meets our inquiry. The reproach is often urged against 



